The Grenadillo Box: A Novel (43 page)

“And what is the other letter you hold?” demanded Robert. “Did you also remove that from my father’s room?”

“Yes,” I said slowly. “It was in his same letter book. It is a letter from my friend Partridge addressed to Miss Alleyn. It was this letter along with your father’s that gave me the key to unravel the whole matter, for it showed me that your aunt had arranged for Partridge to be present the night of Lord Montfort’s dinner.”

Robert held out his arm, clicking his fingers impatiently to indicate I should hand it to him. He read it quickly, then with a shrug of annoyance handed it to Foley, who having perused it, passed it on to Westleigh.

I couldn’t tell them how my heart wrenched every time I looked at the paper bearing Partridge’s hand. Or how I could picture him sitting in his room writing that letter so innocently to the treacherous woman who would bring about his death.

“Why did Miss Alleyn hand this letter to her brother?” demanded Westleigh.

“I would like to think it was because she wanted to help poor Partridge, but I think it more probable she simply intended it to add to Lord Montfort’s distress. He had tormented her for years; she felt justified in tormenting him with evidence of another claimant for his wealth.”

“What then was her reason for killing Partridge? He posed no threat to her.”

“The killing of Partridge happened inadvertently. Remember, in all this the character of Miss Alleyn is central. She was a deeply troubled woman, consumed by a need to secure her future. She was not prone to sudden outbursts of rage or despair as Lord Montfort was, rather she was cunning and manipulative; a woman of warped moral rectitude, but rectitude nonetheless. She had a great capacity for kindness—I will never forget that she insisted Partridge have a proper burial at Horseheath (perhaps remorse prompted her action), yet she was also capable of acting with rash brutality when threatened. Her unhappy history, you are all familiar with. The loss of her fiancé, her humiliation at her brother’s hands, and her desperation to be free of him propelled her actions. She did not
intend
to kill when she embarked on her scheme, though it was always her intention to incriminate an innocent man. She must have known that Partridge might end at the gallows, for no other reason than that it suited her purpose.”

“But why did she pick on Partridge?” said Westleigh.

“Partly because of his link with Lord Montfort. At the time he appeared here unexpectedly she honestly believed he was her brother’s son. Had
he
not become enmeshed in her scheme, doubtless a member of staff would have sufficed; perhaps she would even have attempted to lay the shadow of suspicion upon me. At any rate, the unfortunate Partridge was an ideal culprit, with an all-too-convincing motive for murder after his confrontation with Lord Montfort. Thus she lured him back to the house, on a false pretext of helping him—the arrangement is mentioned in this letter. Her real intention, however, was to make Partridge appear responsible for Lord Montfort’s “murder.” For this reason, she placed the grenadillo box in Lord Montfort’s hand and scattered his drawings on the floor, alongside designs by Mr. Chippendale, thus ensuring that the story of Partridge’s earlier visit and Lord Montfort’s rudeness to him emerged. Remember, Miss Alleyn was very quick to tell us of that disagreement once Partridge’s body had been found.”

“Why then did she kill Partridge so gruesomely?” asked Foley dubiously.

“Because her plan didn’t run as smoothly as she intended. She expected that Partridge would appear
after
the gunshot was fired. But I believe that while Partridge stood waiting in the Italian Garden, he saw lights flickering in the dark windows of the library. He approached the house in the belief that this was the signal he awaited, and that Lord Montfort was now amenable to his petition. Instead, when he scrambled up to the windowsill and looked in, he witnessed Miss Alleyn tampering with her brother’s corpse. Perhaps she was poised with the gun at the very moment Partridge caught sight of her, only he couldn’t know Lord Montfort was already dead. Imagine then how frantic he must have been to see her holding a gun at the head of the man whom he believed might be his father. Naturally he attempted to intervene. He tried to enter by the window, which I’d left open. At that point Miss Alleyn must have heard him. Realizing that Partridge had witnessed her actions and was on the point of entering the room, she briskly altered her plan. Partridge would still serve as a scapegoat, but she would silence him first.”

I broke off then and went to stand by the window where the pool of blood had been. Night had fallen swiftly; there was now no parkland prospect, no Italian Garden, only dark nothingness beyond my own haggard reflection mirrored in the glass.

“I hold myself partly culpable for what happened next. Foolishly I’d left the toolbox by the window. Had I not done so, perhaps Partridge would be with us still. Picture him trying to clamber in from the ground that is some six feet below this room; he must have scrabbled at the wooden frame of the sash here.” I pointed to the frame in front of me. “And held on to it like so.” Here I made a clawed grip onto the back of a chair. “Seeing him suspended thus, poised to enter and destroy her carefully laid plans, Miss Alleyn was driven by instinct rather than reason.” I brought my other hand down in a chopping motion. “She slammed down the sash ferociously on his hands, thus pinioning him to the sill by his palms, and causing the bruising on the backs and palms of his hands that Townes later observed. Then she cast about for a weapon; for some means of getting rid of him. Her eye fell upon the tools left lying there since I had used them, and she picked up a small hatchet.”

I faltered again and closed my eyes, trying to banish the hideous image from my mind. “After several brutal blows, she severed the fingers of his right hand. Then she raised the sash again and watched Partridge fall back to the ground, knowing that he might bleed to death, and that even if he survived no one would believe his story. Next she gathered up the severed fingers and hid them in the bottom of the toolbox. The pool of blood on the sill was now the only marker of her butchery, and she hoped it would be read as further confusing evidence that her brother had been murdered after a struggle in which his assailant was wounded.”

“Then the bloody mess on the windowsill was made by Partridge, not by Montfort at all?” said Westleigh sharply.

“Yes.”

“And the footprints outside were Partridge’s?”

I explained slowly. “After he had been attacked, Partridge stumbled away. There was no trail of blood because he’d thrust the wounded hand in his pocket in an attempt to stanch the flow—his coat was heavily bloodstained when we recovered him. But the trauma of his wounds coupled with the cold was too much for him to survive. He walked only a few yards before he became faint. He staggered to the pond, intending perhaps to use the parapet surrounding it as support while he recovered his strength. One of the undergardeners remarked seeing a man leaning over the pond in the early evening. But poor Partridge did not recover his strength. Instead, dizzy from loss of blood, he fell into the pond, where if he was not dead already, he drowned or froze to death. A miserable end for a man who asked no more from life than to know his origins, wouldn’t you say?”

Foley looked down at his feet. His brows were knitted in thought, and by the dismal downturn of his mouth I could see he too was moved.

“And the gunshot?” said Westleigh impassively.

“Once she had disposed of Partridge, Miss Alleyn returned her attention to Lord Montfort. She took out the gun, fired it. Then, unlocking the servants’ door to the hall, she hurried along the corridor back to the dining room, where she behaved as if she were as astonished as anyone.”

“The three fingers discovered in my room,” interrupted Robert Montfort. “How did they arrive there?”

I turned to him slowly. “Miss Alleyn placed them there to incriminate you in both deaths when she realized that Partridge was not seriously suspected of the killing of your father.”

His face lengthened. “But my aunt was devoted to me,” he protested. “She often said I was the son she never had.”

“Perhaps, but she had grown disaffected with you of late. Did I not tell you just now that she felt you neglected her predicament? I suppose she was careless when she gathered up the fingers, and that was how I came to find one of them at the bottom of the toolbox.”

“And Madame Trenti? What were Miss Alleyn’s reasons for killing her?” asked Westleigh, taking command of the proceedings once more.

“Vengeance for her duplicity. You will recall I described Miss Alleyn as a woman of a curious moral rectitude—it is partly this episode that caused me to describe her thus. Miss Alleyn learned of Madame Trenti’s pretense from me. Until then she believed Partridge
was
Lord Montfort’s child who had been sent to London to the Foundling Hospital. She didn’t know that the child died before it ever left for London.

“Hearing that this was nothing but a fabrication, she became outraged. By then, after she had successfully killed Partridge and meddled with her brother’s corpse, death no longer seemed fearsome to her. I hazard, moreover, it afforded her an inward satisfaction, because it countered the feeling of weakness she so detested.”

“Tell me precisely then, how was Madame Trenti’s murder accomplished?” demanded Westleigh.

I answered as plainly as I could. “On Miss Alleyn’s next visit to London she was staying with the Bradfields as usual. She was well acquainted with the habits of that household, having stayed there many times before. She rose early, before the household was about, and ordered the groom to prepare a coach, which she drove to Golden Square. Leaving the vehicle hidden in a convenient alley, she found her way into the house through a rear entrance that leads directly to the servants’ stairs and to Madame Trenti’s chamber. This, by the way, was not a difficult matter since none of the other rooms on that floor were occupied, and most of the servants were busy downstairs in the kitchens.

“Thus, with minimal effort but immense daring, did Miss Alleyn come upon her quarry, who we may imagine was dozing in bed after her breakfast. She tiptoed in through the servants’ door, locked the door to the main corridor, then brutally strangled her with a length of lace trimming that was conveniently to hand. Madame Trenti must have awoken as the ligature tightened about her neck, for she gave a single cry just as I stood downstairs, and while Mr. Chippendale approached the door and knocked on it. Soon afterwards he and I met upon the stairs, and returned to try the door again. Miss Alleyn at this time was probably already making her escape. She descended the servants’ stairs the way she had come in and hurried back to the waiting carriage.” I paused very briefly to draw breath, then continued on, directing my speech now towards Robert Montfort.

“While I was outside the room, I fancied I heard the sound of light footsteps descending the back stairs. They should have told me the killer was a woman, but Miss Alleyn, continuing in her efforts to cast suspicion on you, my lord, had donned your traveling coat. That is why, when I saw her passing beneath the window after I’d found Trenti’s body, I believed she must be a man, and suspected you of the murder. Even after I learned your aunt had procured the carriage early that morning, I remembered that coat and her fondness for you, and assumed she had taken the carriage for you.”

Robert Montfort was goggle-eyed. “I think it quite preposterous that you should even consider me capable of such a thing,” he blustered. “I have warned you before now, Hopson, that I will not tolerate your effrontery.”

“Truth is no respecter of rank, my lord. I have been asked to explain it. That is all I am attempting to do.”

Robert half rose from his chair, as if he would attack me. I did not drop my gaze.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, pray calm yourselves!” said Westleigh, swiftly stepping between us. “Mr. Hopson, I would be grateful if you would complete your narrative as briefly as you can. Robert, I have implored you several times already—give him leave to speak.”

I waited while Robert sat back in his chair and turned away from me to scowl at the fire. “The only matter I have yet to describe is what I believe to have been an attempt on my life that took place on my return to London after my first visit to Horseheath. My memories of the incident are hazy, but I remember two things quite distinctly. The carriage, banded in green, was the same as the one that I saw flash beneath the window when Madame Trenti died, and the driver wore an identical garb.”

I walked nearer to Robert Montfort, fixing him with an accusing stare. “As I have said already, there is no doubt in my mind that the person I saw from the window was your aunt, Miss Alleyn. The previous occasion, however, is altogether different. I cannot be certain whether the driver was the
owner
of the coat, in other words you, my lord, or whether Miss Alleyn had borrowed it.”

Silence fell upon the room; Robert Montfort scowled more darkly than ever but refused to meet my eye. Eventually Westleigh intervened. “Whatever makes you doubt it was Miss Alleyn, Hopson?”

“Miss Alleyn had no obvious motive at that juncture to wish me dead. Quite the contrary, I was aiding her cause by trying to discover the killer of her brother.”

Westleigh now turned to address Robert directly. “My lord,” he said, “a challenge has been made. You are honor bound to answer it honestly. Was it you who ran down Hopson and left him for dead in the gutter?”